to regain perfect self-possession ere he again mingled
in the jubilant throng and met his father, who shared every lofty
emotion that stirred his own soul, detained him on the battle-field.

It was a scene where dread and horror reigned; for all save himself who
lingered there were held by death or severe wounds.

The ravens which had followed the wanderers hovered above the corpses
and already ventured to swoop nearer to the richly-spread banquet. The
scent of blood had lured the beasts of prey from the mountains and dens
in the rocks and their roaring and greedy growling were heard in all
directions.

As darkness followed dusk lights began to flit over the blood-soaked
ground. These were to aid the slaves and those who missed a relative to
distinguish friend from foe, the wounded from the dead; and many a groan
from the breast of some sorely-wounded man mingled with the croaking of
the sable birds, and the howls of the hungry jackals and hyenas, foxes
and panthers.

But Joshua was familiar with the horrors of the battle-field and did not
heed them.

Leaning against a rock, he saw the same stars rise which had shone upon
him before the tent in the camp at Tanis, when in the sorest conflict
with himself he confronted the most difficult decision of his life.

A month had passed since then, yet that brief span of time had witnessed
an unprecedented transformation of his whole inner and outward life.

What had seemed to him grand, lofty, and worthy of the exertion of all
his strength on that night when he sat before the tent where lay the
delirious Ephraim, to-day lay far behind him as idle and worthless.

He no longer cared for the honors, dignities and riches which the will
of the whimsical, weak king of a foreign people could bestow upon him.
What to him was the well-ordered and disciplined army, among whose
leaders be had numbered himself with such joyous pride?

He could scarcely realize that there had been a time when he aspired
to nothing higher than to command more and still more thousands of
Egyptians, when his heart had swelled at the bestowal of a new title
or glittering badge of honor by those whom he held most unworthy of his
esteem.

From the Egyptians he had expected everything, from his own people
nothing.

That very night before his tent the great mass of the men of his
own blood had been repulsive to him as pitiful slaves languishing in
dishonorable, servile toil. Even the better classes he